6 ms·

How do you spot a genius?

34 points by cclark20 14y ago

ckluis 14y ago
Summary: genius is a complex relationship of ability & accomplishment and is both a nature & nurture issue.
- anonymoushn 14y ago
  jenniewong, you seem to be hellbanned. I assume this is for your submissions rather than for you comments.
  - ckluis 14y ago
    I've only submitted like 2-3 articles. None of them were related to me and at least one was in direct response to another article I read in the top. Although, most of my comments aren't exactly award winning poetry - I would hope that they show some level of engagement on here. How do I de-hellban?
- jenniewong 14y ago
  I like the formula they present that genius = creative productivity = genetics, opportunity, and effort.
braum 14y ago
Go to a Mensa meetup!
- RockofStrength 14y ago
  I agree - kids need intelligent role models. The modes of entertainment kids engage in (tv, movies, videogames) do not glorify intelligence - books are much better for that.
  - walshemj 14y ago
    Well taking just TV Stargate had several very intelligent characters as role models Sam, Daniel, Jonas, Rodney and Jeannie. and NCIS has Abby and Tim. And the BBC's new sherlock also has a hyper intelligent character.
    - SIULHT 14y ago
      times are a-changin' seriously though, being geek has become cool contrast steve urkel with blah blah it's all those shows i don't watch but probably the ones you mentioned.
kiba 14y ago
This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their biology collides with school schedule. Summer vacation have a reputation for destroying education gain, because they're not spending time reviewing what they have learned. Review is crucial to the learning process, since our knowledge decay due to little or no use. That's why adults will have rusty math and know a lot less than high school seniors unless said adult is an engineer or a doctor. They are easy to fix, in theory. All you have to do is distribute summer vacation days into the rest of the school years. All you have to do is shift starting time to something more reasonable like 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM. However, they are hard, because of politics and culturally mandated stupidity.
- bromang 14y ago
  this might help improve performance (though probably the effect will be much smaller than you think), but it doesn't explain the comparative weakness of american PISA results.
  - kiba 14y ago
    Why not? Sleep deprivation and long summer vacations will add up over time.
    - yorak 14y ago
      Because: Finland? We have 2 month summer vacation in elementary school (189 work days/year). The school days seem to begin around 8.30 am. And we were long time the best country in PISA rankings (currently ranked 3nd after a city state of Shanghai and South Korea). What many people who try to model the success of Finnish education system fail to see, is that Finnish society is highly equal. This is true between genders and especially between individuals from different social status and background. We work hard to give high quality education for everybody, no matter the cost. This is the reason why sometimes I wonder how the projects that aim to export the Finnish school model to the countries like Saudi-Arabia can succeed, if the profound problems with the inequality deep in respective societies is not addressed first. The PISA measures averages and it is in cutting the lower performing tail of the distribution where Finland excels.
tnuc 14y ago
I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids." From the article: >America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal? >First of all, we need to train teachers to spot giftedness.... How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor.
- kiba 14y ago
  I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids." No, the article notes that people don't spend much money on gifted kids. So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal? Scores isn't everything. If your scores is in the last place but you have silicon valley and lot of genius or talents cultivated by your school system, who cares? Moreover, cultivating genius isn't mutually exclusive to ensuring everyone get a shot at a good education. How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor. How about don't make the teacher spend time every year doing the same god damn live-lecture every year? Just record the video, and get all the teachers together to vote for the best one. Record all questions students have. Incorporate it into the next video lecture competition.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Mediocre education for all? In a socialist way that makes sense. But won't people with bright kids and money, opt out? Or would you force them to dumb-down their kids experience so your utopian view is satisfied? We'd all be better served by encouraging the best of us, even at the expense of those less able. Not PC, but undeniably true.
joet3ch 14y ago
I look in the mirror
timr 14y ago
"Only four states currently mandate services for gifted students and fully fund those mandates. The failure to develop the talents of our children deprives all of us of a stable of future innovators, creative thinkers, leaders and outstanding performers." Except that clearly, it doesn't. We know this because a) we had plenty of "genius" before we had any "gifted education", and b) the nature of the thing implies exceptionalism that overcomes cultural boundaries. (I also strongly suspect that "gifted education" has never been demonstrated to increase "genius", but that's just my speculation.) If you look at what public education is designed to do (provide for a well-educated populace), it makes sense that most of our resources should go toward the under-performers: it's far more important to have a baseline level of literacy and numeracy for 95% of adults, than to nurture the development of the top 5% of people who will probably excel regardless. I say this as someone who did "gifted education" in elementary and middle school, and found it to be mostly useless. In retrospect, I'd rather that my school district invested the money spent on gifted education in more AP classes, better funding for the arts, computers or early language instruction. It's almost negligent that a school system can afford to pay a full-time "gifted" instructor, but not provide for foreign-language instruction starting in kindergarten.
- nicholas73 14y ago
  I was also put into a "gifted student" class in elementary school - it was little more than extended play time. The problem is alluded to in the article - it's not really agreed on how to systematically produce brilliance. At most a school does is shunt the smarter kids into classes a bit higher than their level. That might save those kids from some time wasting, but still isn't developing them above from what they naturally are. IMO brilliance is a mix of ability, effort, long term planning, and guidance - and each have dozens on variables for maximization. Frankly I wouldn't want public schools as they are doing any long term planning and guidance for my kid. They aren't doing well enough teaching the basics as it is.
  - CrankyPants 14y ago
    Not my experience. The gifted classes I attended were far better than the regular ones, and allowed me to study some JHS and HS-level material. The major failure in my education happened during that wasted period between elementary and college.
nikunjk 14y ago
While reading the article, I couldn't help but think that the title should be "How do you spot a Sheldon?"
dschiptsov 14y ago
it is a self-controlled and self-aware madness.)
numeromancer 14y ago
How do you write a stupid article? * Present it as a “How to...” article, provides a few vague sentences on how you might be able to begin to plan to do it, then quickly devolve into an article on what must be done “for the childrenz!”. * Use lots of emotionally charged nonesense words and phrases, like “gifted”, “radical ideas”, “enabling the genius within”, “renewed commitment to excellence”. * Make it all about the childrenz. * Be sure to add some complaint about lack of funding for projects related to your sparkly notions. * Make the use of everyday judgement sound like a complicated process only safe for use by experts. * Support the statement of your opinions with references to other articles stating the same opinion, but do it in the fashion of a scientific reference. ... and many more!
- darkstalker 14y ago
  I stopped reading at "progress is faster if you are born with the right skills".
- sageikosa 14y ago
  Good to know that Scientific American hasn't changed since the early mid 1990s when I stopped reading it. There was a time that Scientific American had articles on research and experiments (the first 150 years or so of its existence), rather than agenda-based editorial pieces. EDIT: "has" -> "hasn't" in first line.
hastur 14y ago
That's easy: It's me!
incision 14y ago
My time in a gifted program was certainly valuable, a close second to the free lunch program that kept me fed. I attended and later worked in and around the public school system. I have a lot of ideas about what's wrong with it that would impossible to fully articulate here. However, I can say that I wouldn't put "nurturing nascent genius" particularly high on the list.
joycer 14y ago
Yuck
thatusertwo 14y ago
My uncle once told me "You're a genius. Keep doing what you've been doing".

34 points by cclark20 14y ago

ckluis 14y ago

Summary: genius is a complex relationship of ability & accomplishment and is both a nature & nurture issue.

anonymoushn 14y ago
jenniewong, you seem to be hellbanned. I assume this is for your submissions rather than for you comments.
- ckluis 14y ago
  I've only submitted like 2-3 articles. None of them were related to me and at least one was in direct response to another article I read in the top. Although, most of my comments aren't exactly award winning poetry - I would hope that they show some level of engagement on here. How do I de-hellban?
jenniewong 14y ago
I like the formula they present that genius = creative productivity = genetics, opportunity, and effort.

braum 14y ago

Go to a Mensa meetup!

RockofStrength 14y ago
I agree - kids need intelligent role models. The modes of entertainment kids engage in (tv, movies, videogames) do not glorify intelligence - books are much better for that.
- walshemj 14y ago
  Well taking just TV Stargate had several very intelligent characters as role models Sam, Daniel, Jonas, Rodney and Jeannie. and NCIS has Abby and Tim. And the BBC's new sherlock also has a hyper intelligent character.
  - SIULHT 14y ago
    times are a-changin' seriously though, being geek has become cool contrast steve urkel with blah blah it's all those shows i don't watch but probably the ones you mentioned.

kiba 14y ago

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their biology collides with school schedule. Summer vacation have a reputation for destroying education gain, because they're not spending time reviewing what they have learned. Review is crucial to the learning process, since our knowledge decay due to little or no use. That's why adults will have rusty math and know a lot less than high school seniors unless said adult is an engineer or a doctor. They are easy to fix, in theory. All you have to do is distribute summer vacation days into the rest of the school years. All you have to do is shift starting time to something more reasonable like 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM. However, they are hard, because of politics and culturally mandated stupidity.

bromang 14y ago
this might help improve performance (though probably the effect will be much smaller than you think), but it doesn't explain the comparative weakness of american PISA results.
- kiba 14y ago
  Why not? Sleep deprivation and long summer vacations will add up over time.
  - yorak 14y ago
    Because: Finland? We have 2 month summer vacation in elementary school (189 work days/year). The school days seem to begin around 8.30 am. And we were long time the best country in PISA rankings (currently ranked 3nd after a city state of Shanghai and South Korea). What many people who try to model the success of Finnish education system fail to see, is that Finnish society is highly equal. This is true between genders and especially between individuals from different social status and background. We work hard to give high quality education for everybody, no matter the cost. This is the reason why sometimes I wonder how the projects that aim to export the Finnish school model to the countries like Saudi-Arabia can succeed, if the profound problems with the inequality deep in respective societies is not addressed first. The PISA measures averages and it is in cutting the lower performing tail of the distribution where Finland excels.

tnuc 14y ago

I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids." From the article: >America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal? >First of all, we need to train teachers to spot giftedness.... How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor.

kiba 14y ago
I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids." No, the article notes that people don't spend much money on gifted kids. So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal? Scores isn't everything. If your scores is in the last place but you have silicon valley and lot of genius or talents cultivated by your school system, who cares? Moreover, cultivating genius isn't mutually exclusive to ensuring everyone get a shot at a good education. How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor. How about don't make the teacher spend time every year doing the same god damn live-lecture every year? Just record the video, and get all the teachers together to vote for the best one. Record all questions students have. Incorporate it into the next video lecture competition.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Mediocre education for all? In a socialist way that makes sense. But won't people with bright kids and money, opt out? Or would you force them to dumb-down their kids experience so your utopian view is satisfied? We'd all be better served by encouraging the best of us, even at the expense of those less able. Not PC, but undeniably true.

joet3ch 14y ago

I look in the mirror

timr 14y ago

"Only four states currently mandate services for gifted students and fully fund those mandates. The failure to develop the talents of our children deprives all of us of a stable of future innovators, creative thinkers, leaders and outstanding performers." Except that clearly, it doesn't. We know this because a) we had plenty of "genius" before we had any "gifted education", and b) the nature of the thing implies exceptionalism that overcomes cultural boundaries. (I also strongly suspect that "gifted education" has never been demonstrated to increase "genius", but that's just my speculation.) If you look at what public education is designed to do (provide for a well-educated populace), it makes sense that most of our resources should go toward the under-performers: it's far more important to have a baseline level of literacy and numeracy for 95% of adults, than to nurture the development of the top 5% of people who will probably excel regardless. I say this as someone who did "gifted education" in elementary and middle school, and found it to be mostly useless. In retrospect, I'd rather that my school district invested the money spent on gifted education in more AP classes, better funding for the arts, computers or early language instruction. It's almost negligent that a school system can afford to pay a full-time "gifted" instructor, but not provide for foreign-language instruction starting in kindergarten.

nicholas73 14y ago
I was also put into a "gifted student" class in elementary school - it was little more than extended play time. The problem is alluded to in the article - it's not really agreed on how to systematically produce brilliance. At most a school does is shunt the smarter kids into classes a bit higher than their level. That might save those kids from some time wasting, but still isn't developing them above from what they naturally are. IMO brilliance is a mix of ability, effort, long term planning, and guidance - and each have dozens on variables for maximization. Frankly I wouldn't want public schools as they are doing any long term planning and guidance for my kid. They aren't doing well enough teaching the basics as it is.
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Not my experience. The gifted classes I attended were far better than the regular ones, and allowed me to study some JHS and HS-level material. The major failure in my education happened during that wasted period between elementary and college.

nikunjk 14y ago

While reading the article, I couldn't help but think that the title should be "How do you spot a Sheldon?"

dschiptsov 14y ago

it is a self-controlled and self-aware madness.)

numeromancer 14y ago

How do you write a stupid article? * Present it as a “How to...” article, provides a few vague sentences on how you might be able to begin to plan to do it, then quickly devolve into an article on what must be done “for the childrenz!”. * Use lots of emotionally charged nonesense words and phrases, like “gifted”, “radical ideas”, “enabling the genius within”, “renewed commitment to excellence”. * Make it all about the childrenz. * Be sure to add some complaint about lack of funding for projects related to your sparkly notions. * Make the use of everyday judgement sound like a complicated process only safe for use by experts. * Support the statement of your opinions with references to other articles stating the same opinion, but do it in the fashion of a scientific reference. ... and many more!

darkstalker 14y ago
I stopped reading at "progress is faster if you are born with the right skills".
sageikosa 14y ago
Good to know that Scientific American hasn't changed since the early mid 1990s when I stopped reading it. There was a time that Scientific American had articles on research and experiments (the first 150 years or so of its existence), rather than agenda-based editorial pieces. EDIT: "has" -> "hasn't" in first line.

hastur 14y ago

That's easy: It's me!

incision 14y ago

My time in a gifted program was certainly valuable, a close second to the free lunch program that kept me fed. I attended and later worked in and around the public school system. I have a lot of ideas about what's wrong with it that would impossible to fully articulate here. However, I can say that I wouldn't put "nurturing nascent genius" particularly high on the list.

joycer 14y ago

Yuck

thatusertwo 14y ago

My uncle once told me "You're a genius. Keep doing what you've been doing".